Title: Nobody's Hero
Status: novel-length
Rating: R
Pairing: H/D
Warnings: Slash
Disclaimer: No house elf was hurt during the creation of this fanfiction. I do not own the characters. Harry Potter was created by JKR. The characters and associated materials of these works are used WITHOUT permission. I'm not getting any money out of this. Original portion of the fiction included here is considered to be the sole property and copyrighted to the author. Summary: When a person is not the Hero then it doesn't matter what he does or what happens to him. To one Draco Malfoy such a thing can be considerd unacceptable. With this thought, one Draco Malfoy penned several works for his voice to be heard.

Nobody's Hero

Vox Spec # …:

The future is bleak, filled with darkness, cold, and pain. There is no black or white, there is only power and those who wield it. There is no such thing as love, there is only ones wants and wills.

Those are the rules, the laws that we live by. Cold, clinical, merely a form of survival made for a time when our people were little more than scattered practitioners, hunted and feared. We've convinced ourselves that we have grown beyond that yet we kept the rules for survival intact.

For all our pride, wizards are more powerful than muggles we always say, we are little more than another race in this earth. We like all other people that have survived created our own civilization. We built our own world with magic as its base, changed our language ever so slightly and created our own currency and form of communication. We show off our abilities, we flaunt it. We have made a game where only our kind will ever be able to play, with our brooms and our magical snitch. To apparate and to portkey became our chosen ways of travel. We have made our ways distinct from others saying we are so much better than them. But are we?

We have made our havens, our homes, secret, unplottable, our way of housekeeping hidden from them. Only those who were born from them or has at least a parent born from them could say they were willing to bring them into their homes, yet after that generation they too hide or stay closer to wizarding quarters. Even the most openly enamored by their ways hide their homes, telling their children tolerance yet still the wards and charms around them remain.

We would never admit it but for all our posturing we still fear them. We do not understand their ways; we never tried too, even with our muggle studies course that barely scratches the surface. We fear that they will not understand our ways and burn us at stake as they once did. As one muggle wrote, fear ultimately leads to suffering. Who will suffer in the end, or who will suffer more, would be anyone's guess.

For our people to stop fearing there must be understanding. To understand means to open our eyes to the world beyond our own. When one removes the blinders that have been kept for much too long change would be inevitable.

Wizards, no matter how open, are resistant to change. Yet change we must. If we are to survive as a race we must change with the times.

To change need not be so abrupt as to trample on tradition. Tradition as well as magic has kept our world together. It need not be a transition but more an integration of their world to ours, whether we chose to reveal ourselves to them or not.

We will not be changing our ways for them, but for our selves. We cannot become stronger if we are simply satisfied with what we have always known. It will be being less than what we are if we cannot survive where those of us consider less fortunate, magically, thrive.

The future, our future, should not be bleak, instead should have all the possibilities that we have denied ourselves in our flight for survival. It isn't all light but definitely not all darkness. It could still be cold but it needn't be by our own choice. Pain will always be there but we need not expect it in everything.

There is no black or white, there is only power and those who wield it. Is it merely black or white? What of the endless shades of grey? We have tried to change this integral part of us but we need not do so. We are all shades of grey and the difference is not even in our abilities in magic but who has power and who wields it. What needs to be changed is the part on who wields it, or more how it is used.

There is no such thing as love, there is only ones wants and wills… This I will leave to each and everyone. The moment we leave that part of ourselves and succumb to merely our wants and wills then we are no more than animals and deserve to have our world crumble around our ears. There is a place for wants and wills, it shapes us. There is also a place for love as well, it completes us.

We need to do this and we need to start at the very foundation of our beliefs. Then only can we go forward. Then only can we say that we are great. Then only can we be truly ourselves.

-- Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.

This is who I am, not who they made up in their minds or who I made them think I am. This is what I want, not what my family wants or what others expect me to do. This is why I am what I am. Nothing more. Nothing less.

****

He watched the ink dry slowly; it was an old, very common type and not the quick dry that he ordinarily used. It was for the best though. The more common ink was less likely to be traced, not that he expected anyone to try. The Quibbler had known they had hit a goldmine when they started publishing his writings. It was not exactly polished or decidedly news-like yet it drew the people from day one.

It always came out on a Sunday. It was always a special edition. It wasn't even called The Quibbler at all anymore. The print was now headed with Vox Spec: Voice of Hope. It was the single most bought copy of The Quibbler every week. And no one knew it was him.

It has been three years, almost four, since he had started sending his 'thoughts' to Mr. Lovegood. It had not been a spur of the moment idea of his to actually send his works to the man. It had taken much research and thought. He had needed a media that had a wide coverage yet not under the control of the Ministry. The Daily Prophet was instantly shot down. Money controlled that paper and he had no intention of letting them manipulate his works. The Witch Weekly was far too limited to a single gender as did the Quidditch Monthly, though it was more limited to a single interest than gender. The Quibbler was the only option left, even if it had a reputation.

He had not expected such a clamor when the first edition was printed. Inside his insulated world it had seemed like a normal, quiet day. On the streets of Diagon Alley, inside wizarding homes, even on the Wizarding Wireless, the news spread and like a spark in a dry forest the fire started.

With a flick of his wand the parchment rolled on itself and a seal held it closed, a stylized D on grey wax. The parchment hidden inside an inner pocket of his robe and the journal containing the original of the written work charmed stacked with his other books he left his room and started his trek to the room of requirement where he knew a porthole between him and The Quibbler office waited for him.

Then, before the rise of Voldemort it was merely a work that needed to be talked about and debated upon. He had considered himself lucky that of the people in his school only one truly read The Quibbler and everyone else read the Daily Prophet. Since that day though he knew at least one other read it on Sundays, the Headmaster.

Now that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or Voldemort, was back his works has started to mean more than thought provokers. At times it was something almost akin to words of hope. The readership has not dropped since. It wasn't important to him though. What was important was that they heard.

The halls were mostly empty as he knew a Quidditch game was in progress at the pitch. It was just as well. He didn't need to have to explain why he was at that particular corridor, especially since it has become the DA headquarters cum training room. Much as he liked the challenged, being hit by a hex by over eager children was not on his to-do list that day.

He would rather spend it ensuring no one figured him out. His allegiance must never be in question. It was safer that way. He had refused to become a slave and his father had accepted that, though not with repercussions to himself. He had no intention on being manipulated by a devious batty old man, he had other plans in mind. To not be a death eater and yet not be one of the Order but still be against the madman was a tricky ball to juggle. But then he wouldn't be who he was if he had life easy.

Anyway he found it interesting to imagine the reaction of his "enemies" when they find out the truth and what it really meant to fight for ones beliefs.

AN: No beta reader so… sorry for any problems.
Quote: Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis. -- "The times are changed, and we are changed in them."